Showing all posts tagged hack

Carrie Fisher died over the Holidays, may she rest in peace. She was best known for Leia in “Star Wars” and second-best known for her wit. Having finished filming for Episode VIII due in 2017, Episode IX for 2019 is still in on the drafting board, though she was intended to play a substantial role. There has been no official comment on what Leia’s role will be.

When anyone dies, our natural response is to discuss their work. It seems cold, but is its own form of respect. People want to know how her life’s work will end up, a question about justice to her and her work. People ask what will become of her unfinished work because they love her. They’ll make it good. They always do.

But, deeper meaning surfaces for all of us. Han Solo’s death, his speculated return, the runaway son, and the complexity of Leia and Han’s family opened one of the deep problems in America: broken families. Any runaway child should come home quickly because parents don’t live forever. Carrie’s mother passed away the next day.

Carrie Fisher left us with many messages, both in life and in death, both good and bad, both filial and professional, both pithy and elaborate, and always poetic.

A team that works in web security dug into claims about the so-called (and now seemingly mislabeled) “Russian hack” and they made some reports. In sum, it likely wasn’t Russia in particular. The hack seemed to use out-of-date Ukrainian hacker tools, had multiple origins and targets, and, as usual with hacks, the main vulnerability was: compromised user accounts—something easily prevented by using Ubuntu rather than Windows for a desktop operating system and knowing a few basics about hyperlinks, apps, and websites.

If Russia did have anything to do with the [non-]Russian hack, it would have been to get Democrats to merely cast the recent and unnecessary doubt on the perfectly-in-tact election system itself.

Obama continues to work diligently—between golf trips—to smack someone on the wrist in his remaining less-than-three-weeks. Israel may be stalling too much to receive a good slap; instead, he went after the adversary who outsmarted him time and again, including this time: Putin.

In life, many of us know what we have lost, but few of us ever learn to know when we have lost.

Socialists worldwide claimed Trump would be bad for America and predicted his loss in the election; Russia probably would think the same and try to help him. If Russia aimed to help Trump, that would be yet one more mistake on behalf of the global club of socialists—both official and unofficial. There is no news here, though many report it as such.

The faithless elector movement has already found it’s scrutiny, already fulfilling Symphony’s prediction from just last week. Their point man is reported as a would-be fraud. And, the dwindling movement itself does not include most of the people who voted against Trump. These are only the few who don’t know how to accept loss.

The anti-Trump alarmism has an interesting history since his announcement to run. Trump makes public comments that reflect a private self-talk of “no excuse, no whining, and know which battles you’ll lose”; his opponents lost, don’t seem to know it, make progressively-more dramatic excuses of how it’s “someone else’s fault” (this time the Russians), and won’t stop whining. They seem to follow the Kübler-Ross five-stages of grief. This current suspicion of the Russians has a few contradictions…

In the “election hack” narrative, no one claims that votes were directly altered. Though, precincts in Wisconsin had more Republican votes than registered voters and Democratic precincts in Detroit had something similar. Both parties can thank Hillary for exposing those precincts in her generous reverence for honesty—but, we don’t hear much thanks.

The purported “bias” in the leaked-hacked info. implies that an unbiased leak would have been preferable. And, it ignores the reversed bias from the American media, not to mention its failure to recognize the use of “fear marketing” from the Trump opposition.

Moreover, the clearer influence of Russian propaganda has always been in sectors of education, where the Constitution is attacked, turning points in American history are left out, and Communism is touted as an ideal theory. Those who opposed Trump seem to agree with one or more of those talking points, but only seem concerned as if Russia wanted to pick and choose candidates rather than sowing doubt of the entire process itself; and they certainly show no concern for the Russian influence in their own ideology. The Russian-conspiracy theorists should suspect themselves most of all—and they will, sooner or later.

Pentagon waste topped $125 billion and someone tried to cover it up. Trump complained about $4 billion with Boeing. That could mean that he is focused on details too-small or that he is minding the pennies so the dollars will take care of themselves.

The Hillary-backed recount included the Republican House Speaker’s district and was shut-down by a Democratic White House controlled federal judge after Hillary’s Republican opponent gained votes—and no one thought the whole incident to be suspicious.

Casting doubt on Trump’s legitimacy is one suspicion that sits among others. If the Russians were so uncharacteristically sloppy in their appearance of an election hack, then Liberals, along with the Democratic White House controlled CIA, suspecting the hack are doing what the Russians wanted. The accusation that the Russians hacked the election would actually indite the incumbent administration.

Post-election opposition to Donald Trump is ripening into form. There are two ends of the “business man” spectrum: good and bad, both morally and effectively. The bad business leaders don’t make a good product and only make gains—or more often than not minimize losses—by strong arming, cutting smoke-filled back room deals, and hostile takeover methods. The good business leaders make a great product that people want to buy and lead a company that people want to work for.

We have Bill Gates at one end—with a company some people want to work for and a product no one looks forward to purchasing (let alone updating)—and then Steve Jobs at the other—with a company many people want to work for and a product even the competition idolizes. In the most recent presidential elections, the wealthy candidates had the Clintons and Bushes at one end, Trump at the other, and Ross Perrot in the middle.

The concept doesn’t only apply to business, but also non-profits and governments. Dishonest leaders have to be dishonest because they don’t have the work ethic or “market smarts” to make money the so-called “honest way”. The honest leaders prefer the “honest way” because it’s easier for them—that’s what they have gotten good at: building an organization that really does something well.

As with having bad credit, being bad at what someone does is a kind of “security risk”. Leaders who don’t know how to lead will tend to find alternative ways of getting the appearance of good results. But, leaders who know what they are doing are less likely to be dishonest, unethical, or corrupt.

Trump says things in public that he says to himself to keep himself motivated and on course. “Go-getters” and fired-up entrepreneurs recognized what Trump said in what they tell themselves daily: Don’t accept excuses for failure, especially from yourself.

Most people don’t see a difference from one wealthy man to the next. The loud voices complaining about Donald Trump especially can’t tell this difference. They thought they were so right in their theory that they couldn’t see that their theory lacked the ability to understand what made the candidates different nor to foresee who would win the election. Now that their theory has been proven wrong, some are listening while others are balling-up in panic so they can continue to tell themselves they are right in the face of mounting evidence.

The faithless electors vowing to vote against Trump even before the electoral college meets in mid December are making a big mistake. We can only break the glass once and they will be made examples of to maintain the integrity of future elections. Their concerns about foreign influence and making dangerous statements applied to many previous presidents much more so than Trump. But, that is difficult to identify for people who don’t see how apply the polarized relationship between Gates and Jobs.

Bill O comments on the South Carolina police shooting. Trump is not happy about Iran, read a great interview. W’s No Child Left Behind bill faces bipartisan opposition. Russia hacked the White House’s “unclassified” email system. LinkedIn is buying the cyberverse, with Linda.com to boot, CRM, freelance jobs, and HR on the radar. And, you won’t be seeing Rob Lowe talking to himself about DirectTV anymore, ever since Comcast now cares about the truth.